Fantastic Planet: Volunteer Of The Month Pick

Our second Volunteer of the Month pick for April, courtesy of Yasmin Hurtado, is René Laloux's brilliant Fantastic Planet!

This animated tale follows the relationship between the small human-like Oms and their much larger blue-skinned oppressors, the Draags, who rule the planet of Ygam. While the Draags have long kept Oms as illiterate pets, this hierarchy shifts after an Om boy becomes educated, thanks to a young female Draag. This leads to an Om rebellion, which weakens the Draag control over their race. Will the Oms and the Draags find a way to coexist? Or will they destroy each other?

With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor, brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-winning 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.